Selling Commercial Real Estate? Social Media Can Help

The journey from "Selling" to "Sold" is not easy, especially when you're selling commercial real estate.

Selling commercial real estate is different from selling residential properties. The main challenge is when it becomes B2B. Interestingly, this is an area where social media can actually help a lot. Let's find out how.

Create a plan: First of all, you need a social media marketing plan in place to sell your products. Companies often mistakenly think that the realtor's marketing strategy is good for individual properties as well. The fact remains, each property needs a separate strategy if they target different people.

Pick which social network to use: Social media marketing starts with social networks. Facebook and LinkedIn have been the most popular ones among commercial realtors. However, Instagram is challenging to become a front-runner for commercial realtors these days.

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A CRT REALTOR®️ Technology Survey stated that the majority of real estate professionals use Facebook and LinkedIn for selling properties.

Remember to plan practically: Don't jump into too many channels without thinking ahead. If you think that managing more than one platform could be difficult for you, start with one. Facebook should be the first choice because it's still the largest network.

Optimize your social profiles: Once you finalize the networks, it's time to optimize the pages.

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Always complete the “About” section of your Facebook page. Add all contact information and business details like the hours of operation. Customize the "CTA Button to Your Page, based on your preferences.

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There are two benefits of optimizing your social pages:

• People will be able to find you when they search with related keywords on the channel.
• When they land on your page, they will be able to find all the details they need about the business. This is crucial for helping them connect with you easily.

Join relevant groups: Various social media channels offer groups where commercial realtors can find relevant topics to talk about, find relevant people to connect with, and take advantage of an ideal opportunity to display their properties.

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It’s very important to understand where your customers are! For example, if your commercial property is for small business owners, aim for groups where your target audiences are present.

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However, there is a trick to leveraging Facebook or LinkedIn groups to their utmost potential. Both of these channels don't allow business pages to join groups, so you must join as an individual.

For this reason, having a strong social media profile is a big plus. Moreover, most groups don't allow salesmanship. This type of scenario requires you to contribute in a subtle way.

Don't promote your property directly. Instead, talk about the latest industry news or help fellow members by solving a problem. Remember, social groups are not marketplaces, but an excellent channel to make connections.

Create content that resonates with potential customers: The best way to connect with your target audience is to understand their pain points and offer a balanced solution. There a few steps involved in this process.

• First, identify the potential customers for your commercial real estate company and divide them into groups, such as high-end customers, mid-level customers, small business owners, etc.
• Second, create a buyer persona for each group.
• Third, survey the market to understand what kind of issues they face while finding a space for their businesses.
• Fourth, create content that addresses their problems.

Let's take a cue from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC). They recently conducted research on how a physical store impacts a business online. They worked on different retail categories and showed why every one of them needs a brick and mortar store.

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Not only that, but they are also using their research findings very cleverly on social media to engage with their target audience.

Show off your properties: Yes, it's that simple. However, when displaying your property, be sure to use compelling designs and beautiful photography.

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For any kind of real estate, location is always very important.Social media is a wonderful channel to use for discussing property locations and the many advantages a business will benefit from being in that area.

Make lots of videos: Videos make great content and are very helpful for giving the audience a virtual tour of a property. In fact, it’s probably the best way to help customers make an informed decision.

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Apart from creating videos about the property and location, you can also create testimonial videos that vouch for your properties. Another option is to use Facebook Live and Instagram Live to make live videos and share them on your pages for future reference.

Engage with relevant people: For commercial realtors, connecting with relevant people is very important. Listening to relevant discussions is a great way to find out about the people that matter to your business.

Use hashtags and search tools.

Tools like RiteTag or Best-hashtags can help you find the most popular hashtags for your social media posts. You can also follow these hashtags to identify discussions where you can pitch in.

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Search tools like Google Alerts are also helpful to find the latest industry news to share on social media.

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Current topics make great conversation starters. Use them to their full potential.

Consider social campaigns: Social media campaigns are a unique way to make your mark as a sustainable commercial real estate company. Many realtors do it, but they shy away from sharing them.

Let's see how Brandywine Realty has created their property tour with a nice video campaign.

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They also offer occasional deals to promote their properties on social media. Now that's interesting, right?

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Run ads: Like every industry, commercial real estate needs the power of social media ads to sell properties. With the options available for niche targeting, getting results from these ads is a sure-fire formula.

Let's dig deeper.

Targeting is the most important factor of social media ads for realtors. Let's assume you are looking at selling space for a restaurant. You can set your ads based on the job title or industry as seen below.

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Similarly, try different targeting options to understand the behavior of your target audience and what works best for them.

Conclusion: This is pretty much it. Start with the following five essentials:

1. Develop a social media strategy
2. Build and customize your social media pages
3. Connect with relevant people. Build relationships, and leads will follow.
4. Create great content
5. Push your content further with paid ads

Don’t forget to review your strategy and results every six months. It's important to gauge if the plan is working for you. Don't hesitate to change or modify the plan to test a new approach or possibilities.